Search

The other day, after two very busy weeks The Man booked us a table at Caldesi in Campagna in Bray. Since buying The Italian Cookery Course by Katie Calsesi, (one half of the husband and wife duo behind the restaurant), we had been promising ourselves a visit as a treat so it was lovely to finally go. This isn’t a review site, but the food was wonderful and the staff charming and easy-going; our meal was not cheap but a fabulous treat and one that was much-needed!

The meal also inspired me to go back to the book and try some more recipes. I was keen to use something from the allotment so looked up broad beans in the index and found Stufato di salsicce, fave e patate a much more elegant way of saying; sausage, broad bean and potato casserole.

For a recipe with a fairly simple list of ingredients (sausage, potato, beans, tomato, chilli & garlic) it was a really rich, tasty stew, with a good kick of heat. Perhaps better suited to winter or autumn eating, but with fresh ingredients picked and dug up earlier in the afternoon on the allotment it made sense. The Man pronounced it ” a triumph” so it must have been good.

We ate it with a slice of home-made rye bread to soak up the sauce, (the bread maker has really been earning its keep), and a glass of italian red. I’ve got a feeling this recipe will become a regular fixture even if visits to the restaurant don’t.

Follow me on Twitter

Featured posts

Pick yourself up dust yourself off – it’s a bit more complicated than that! Firstly let me say I’m not perfect. I woke up to the referendum result this morning and cried, then swore, hugged Dan hard, then went on to blame the elderly, the ignorant and the racist for making what I think is […]

Title: Nigella Express Author: Nigella Lawson Stats: paperback, pages 390 Blurb: “The domestic goddess is back and this time it’s instant”, “Once you’ve seen what Nigella can do for you in 20 minutes, you’ll never want anything else”. Cooked from it before? Yes, fewer than 5 times. Recipe: Lazy Loaf. This is Nigella’s first appearance […]

Title: Russian German and Polish Cooking Author: various contributing editor Lesley Chamberlain Stats: paperback, 256 pages Blurb: “The first full-colour, truly comprehensive collection of Eastern European recipes”. Cooked from it before? No Recipe: Hungarian Goulash I’ll be honest I’m not sure why I bought this book! It was a random purchase from a garden centre. […]

Title: The Italian Cookery Course Author: Katie Caldesi Stats: hardback, 511 pages. Blurb “the definitive guide to discovering and cooking Italy’s many gastronomic treasures” Cooked from it before? Yes but fewer than 5 times. Recipe: Ragu alla Bolognese I picked this off the shelf because the first response I got from a friend on facebook […]

The Man and I have a lot of cookery books, I knew this. I just didn’t quite realise the scale of our collection. Every New Year I like to have a sort out and a tidy up, it helps me deal with the passing of the old year and helps me start the new one […]